Does Szela’s peasant state have any sense? Are we able to accept and recognise other tropes of identity than those taught in schools, where Szela is presented as a primitive and vengeful traitor, and his revolt as murder of Poland’s best sons inspired by the Austrian administration? Will we be able to give up ours memories of historical and identity politics in the face of the upcoming world order? Is it at all possible to say without shame that today we are Europeans, because at some point we were able to murder?
These are people struggling with the demons of their own past, who try to wash the slavish sediment off their hands at all cost. – say Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski ironically. – Naturally, they don’t succeed, because it is impossible to renounce one’s peasant nature. There are many such people in Warsaw. Well, let them live their life, maybe they’ll reconsider things after they see the show. We trust in the educational power of theatre, even if we’re talking people with poor cultural competence, or in fact its total inborn absence.
The authors ask awkward questions and provokingly argue that today’s middle class cannot come to terms with being the descendant of those who could murder in cold blood innocent and defenceless children, women, elderly people, and priests. We hide Szela deep in ourselves, go on holiday to Egypt, and we are apparently Europeans.
In the name of Jakub S. written by Paweł Demirski; direction: Monika Strzępka; stage design: Michał Korchowiec; music: Jan Suświłło; stage movement: Rafał Urbacki; cast: Klara Bielawka, Anna Kłos-Kleszczewska, Małgorzata Maślanka, Krzysztof Dracz, Dobromir Dymecki, Sławomir Grzymkowski, Paweł Tomaszewski. Premiere in Warsaw: 18th December, 2011.